


you said you'd lend me anything, i think i'll have your company

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson's pov, Drinking & Talking, Drunken Kissing, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, F/M, Heavy Drinking, Older Man/Younger Woman, Skye and her Huge Crush on Coulson, Unresolved Sexual Tension, episode 1x17 spoilers, i have always wanted to write a drunken kissing fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betrayed and angry and lost Coulson and Skye decide to drown their sorrows in alcohol.</p><p>But they discover that while sorrows indeed do drown other things oh how they float.</p><p>(Spoilers for 1x17 "Turn Turn Turn")</p>
            </blockquote>





	you said you'd lend me anything, i think i'll have your company

Everything is gone.

Fuck, not even just broken – everything is bullet-holed. From the collectables in his room to each and every one of the windows to every item of lab equipment. He thinks Fitz might sob. Skye is definitely not going to sob but Coulson watches her pick up the two irretrievably broken pieces of her Hula girl figurine and touch her thumb along the edges for a moment, before thowing them unceremoniously to the trash. And isn't that a perfect summary of Skye, because if you miss the first half you might think that's all there is, the coldness of walking away from things, the shrugging them off, the disposal.

Plus the hard drive is gone.

Every file, the account of the work they've done together these past months, vanished as if they were never there. Coulson didn't use to believe in symbolism, not like this, but then a sceptre went through his heart and you'd have to be an idiot not to pause at the metaphor.

Ward is gone. Victoria Hand most possibly too (he has a bad feeling about that). Garrett is gone.

Certain idea of Melinda May, gone forever.

The purity of his mission, comic book heroes and the right thing to do, not just gone – it was never there in the first place and he had been such a fool.

Gone, gone, gone.

Bullet holes everywhere but thank god they somehow missed the bar and they missed the scotch and the vodka too.

 

 

+

 

 

Drinking doesn't make him less angry – but it makes him feel a lot more righteous in his anger. And that feels good, for now (it'll hurt like hell tomorrow). It helps, because in a state of righteousness he can justify almost everything. He can justify wanting to be a real bastard to everyone on this plane right now.

Everybody else has already kind of kept out of his way today, wisely.

Except of course Skye, who can't either ever get out of his way or do anything wisely for the life of her. Drinking might help him resent that in her, instead of the other thing. The other thing'd better drown.

He takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves (touching the wound Garrett gave him, hurting like everything, but so much sweeter than any scar he got fighting side by side with the man) and drinks one glass, two, three, before Skye makes the expected appearance. He pretends he hasn't been waiting.

"There are shards of broken glass on literally every surface of my room," she announces. "Hey, at least the bar is intact. Well, mostly."

She traces her fingers on the trail of holes the bullets have left on the rich wood panels, it looks as if a wild beast had sunk its teeth on it.

"Yes." Coulson scoots over to the other seat, to leave her room, because if Skye is going to do this to him, at least they are doing it properly.

"Umm, yes, thanks. I guess this is one of those times where some alcohol is actually recommended to keep your sanity." He hands her an empty glass. "And the coasters?"

"Fuck that," he says under his breath. Her eyes widen.

"Okay. Easy, boss."

He pushes the bottle of scotch to her side. "Try this. Director Fury gave me this bottle as a good luck present when I took over the Bus. He knows about this stuff. _Knew_. It's supposed to be very good. Supposed to."

She's again doing the sad face bullshit thing; Coulson doesn't need this. Except yeah, tomorrow it will feel a bit better for it, when he remembers it. Right now, he doesn't want it. He's not here to mourn. He's not here to watch Skye pity him, so she'd better get on with the plan.

"I'm sorry about Director Fury," she tells him, sounding like she wants him to pour his soul or something. But tonight is not tomorrow just yet so right now it just tastes bitter and useless. He is not doing this. He snorts at her, looking away. 

"I'm not sure _sorry_ is the pertinent word in this situation," he tries to grit his teeth, but it comes out an ugly grimace.

"Even with all the lies he told you, you have to be feeling something right now, it's normal."

"I don't _have_ to feel a damn thing. Hence the..." he swings the glass in front of her.

"I get you."

" _Do you_? Come on, Skye. You have to be taking it hard, too. SHIELD was the only thing you had in your life, the only thing you've _ever_ had," he says. He knows he's being cruel. Maybe he just wants some company down here at the bottom of everything. "And it turns out it's –"

"HYDRA."

"Exactly."

She takes the bottle from his hands and pours herself a drink.

"When you put it like that..."

 _This is great, Phil_ , sure why not, push the subordinate to drink. Not a subordinate, not anymore, not really, not officially, no more SHIELD, no more _these rules_. If there is not the word _subordinate_ (or the word protégé or the words pet project or the words level 1 agent) between Skye and whatever needs to be stopped through those words then... 

He needs to stop drinking, right now, he realizes. He needs to drink a fucking lot more.

"Ugh, I do not care for scotch at all."

"There's vodka," he gestures.

"No, I'm okay. How much have you drunk already?"

"Why? If it makes you uncomfortable you are very welcome to leave."

"Wow, this stuff _is_ good, it's got you in a state. If you don't want me here," she stands up to leave but Coulson grips her arm, kind of tightly but kind of not, leading her back to her seat. Not wanting her here, not wanting her, yeah, that's not part of the equation. Skye grabs her glass with renewed enthusiasm and a little annoyed at him, which a lot better than pity. "I guess I have to catch up with you..."

 

 

+

 

 

He used to be a brilliant drunk.

He used to be funny and companiable. (He remembers drinking with Garrett, god, he remembers)

He used to be charming with a half a bottle of red in him. (he really was, not so long ago, ask _her_ )

He used to – 

What happened to that? Now he is just sad and pathetic and bitter; and sad and pathetic and bitter in front of Skye, and he doesn't seem to mind – he thought he would but he doesn't, and maybe that's just the alcohol too. There are very few humilliations left, what's one more. Maybe the only thing he is feeling right now is _old_.

The scotch is gone – _Director Fury is dead, long live Director Fury_ , or something to that effect, but with less burning in the back of his throat– but there's plenty of vodka. Skye is a bourbon girl, ironically, she confesses at some point, and he already knew that, he knows the geography of her past, he knows Miles Lydon's hometown's choice of poison for fuck's sake and he wonders about the connection and he doesn't go there, of all the places Coulson refuses to go this particularly ugly place has the dubious honor of making the top of the list.

She prefers vodka to scotch and soon she's ahead of him, sipping generously and a bit carelessly. Coulson's head pounds with the change, though. He's also beginning to think if a drunk Skye is really something he wants in his hands.

"You must think I'm an idiot," she says out of the blue, alcohol-logic and self-pity.

"...because?"

"I gave the hard drive to Ward and now Ward is..."

"We don't know for sure where he is, or what he is doing." He doesn't say it's not her fault, or that she wasn't an idiot.

"Don't tell me you didn't think something felt fishy, even before he left to escort Garrett."

"It's on me," Coulson says, but not for her benefit. "He murdered a man in cold blood two days ago, of course he was in no condition to board on a plane with his ex-mentor, the HYDRA agent."

"But you think he's fine, don't you?" She sounds worried for more than Ward's physical safety and to be fair Coulson is on the same boat right now.

And he could say something to make her feel better here but that's not him tonight. Tonight he is not the gruff but sensitive mentor who knows when Skye needs to be pushed and when she needs to be pulled. Tonight he is not interested in offering reassurances.

"To tell you the truth I have no idea," he says.

She takes a long sip from her drink, avoiding his eyes when she makes the next question.

"Have you talked to May about it? About... Ward?"

He looks at her. Of course she knew. It doesn't even surprise him, it does the opposite. Coulson hasn't even started to think about all that. 

"Not about that. She's been a bit busy detailing her complete and intimate betrayal of my trust."

She opens her mouth for a moment. Then shifts in her seat, uncomfortable. "She thought she was protecting you."

"I don't care," he says.

Skye goes very still, almost pensive – or the tipsy version of it.

"No," she tells him. "Maybe you shouldn't care. It doesn't change anything. But –"

"I don't want to talk about May."

"I know, I know, I know. And I'm not defending her. I know what she did, even with good intentions, was unforgivable. But..."

"What?"

"Eventually, someday, and I'm not saying _soon_ , but you are going to forgive her."

"You can't know that. I don't know that."

She gives him a sort of sad smile. "I know that."

"How?"

"Because – come on, Coulson, it's you. You're... like that. That's why you are so cool."

He clicks his tongue.

"I think you are mistaken about what that word actually means."

She snorts, then frowns, startled at the sound. Maybe she is already getting actually pretty drunk. _Perfect_. He thought this through so very well.

"I don't want to talk about May," he repeats.

"No, of course, no, whatever you want."

He wants he wants he wants he wants he wants he wants he wants. Like it matters. He's not even responsible for his own life.

"You know how humilliating it is?" he goes off, leaning into Skye as if she were a random stranger he's unloading to in a bar. "I don't have a team, I have a repair shop. I am Fury's little broken toy."

"You're not – could never be – _not broken_ ," she explain, slurred but earnest. She puts the palm of her hand against his chest. "Maybe a bit scarred. That's not too bad. Better scars than wounds."

She sounds alternatively so old and way too fucking young.

She withdraws that hand; it brushes his knee on the way back to Skye and he thinks _boundaries_ as if they ever had any to begin with.

He has told her everything May said to him; every detail about how he was stripped of any power of choice from the get go. He thought she deserved to know; she was somehow another victim of this treason. And their bodies are mirrors, and Skye needed to know if there was a possibility that his would turn on them. He hasn't told her about his fears that May's indiscretion might have cost Skye the secret of her origin. He will tell her, he just can't yet, give him a minute here.

"I thought I was a man," he says, looking down at his fingers wrapped around the glass. "I thought I had that. I don't. I'm not. This is not being a man."

"Stop that," she pleads, but drunken it sounds like she is angry. But stopping it is what he doesn't want to do; the whole pathetic point of this exercise is not having to stop.

He doesn't stop.

He keeps on pushing past the expression of discomfort on Skye's face.

"I served that man with blind faith. And that woman was my friend. And what they were doing – their idea of me. It's true, I'm a wind-up toy and I am broken and any day now I can start to wind down."

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that." And he chooses not to listen to her.

" _And Director Fury_ ," he breathes out, not sure why he should still be using ranks, after everything Fury has done. "He was my – he taught me everything. And now..."

Everything is gone. Not just broken. Not just damaged beyond repair. Except that too.

Skye's fingers curled around the curve of his right shoulder. He missed the moment she started the gesture, too lost in his own thoughts. There's a hint of dampness along her hairline and she takes a deep breath to steady herself.

"I'm so sorry," she says, like it's uncomplicated, like Coulson is just mourning a friend, and not mourning, mostly, a certain idea of himself. He stiffens, making her move her hand away.

"Everything is like that. We've messed everything up. I mean, we don't even have our own past. Fucking hell, _John Garrett_ ," he bites. "I used to run ops with him. We've been behind the enemy lines together. We've even shared a sleeping bag, huddled for warmth on a mission in Poland – and all this time... how many more like him? What kind of orders have I been following? Maybe I should just get up and say _Hail HYDRA_."

It's good, so good, the terrible taste of those words in his mouth.

"Don't," Skye says, _again_ , taking the bottle from his hand and pouring his next drink herself. "Can't think like that, Coulson. _Can't_."

She's agitated, trying to get him to stop this decline. But Coulson just wants to spiral.

The logic of human interaction – the warning signs, the regulations, the _distance_ – has been left behind in a drunken stupor some time ago so he's not really disturbed when Skye is at it again and she grabs the collar of his shirt, fingers fisted into a ball, and pushes her face very close to his neck. Coulson stops thinking about Garrett and HYDRA and his own whole life as a long, tortuous con he was never part of – starts thinking about something much, much more troubling instead.

"Skye?"

"Mmm-uh."

She has her chin resting on his shoulder. 

This is the danger of drinking in company – and Coulson now imagines himself kissing her.

He would lie if he said it's the first time, but he would also lie if he said he's ever indulged in the idea so precisely as he is doing right now. His skin itches with the precision of it, and she is just right here. Skye is so close and just here and he only has to lean over and he wants to he wants to so badly and – 

Suddenly her mouth is on his, moving. Before Coulson has time to process what has just happened Skye is kissing him again, another brief, almost-chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. Skye has kissed him. She has kissed him and then she has done it again.

"Oh _no_ , what."

She sounds horrified at herself. Coulson himself is a bit horrified, in all fairness. Imagining is one thing, the complete awful experience of it is another – not awful in itself because, mmm, no, even through the veil of alcohol and anger he could taste it, sweet and nice and frustratingly brief, but awful because of what it means for them.

"Skye...?"

She puts her hands on his shoulders, the eyes very wide.

"No, no, no, I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry. So sorry."

She's a bit too sorry for his taste. Even if drunk. Does she find what she's just done so distasteful? Normally you have to be sober again to regret the things you've done with drunk. He looks a bit closer into those eyes and realizes is not so much disgust in them as fear. He wonders why there'd be such fear there, what on earth could ever possibly frighten someone like Skye.

She puts her face in her hands. A soft, terrible chuckle escapes between her fingers.

"Oh fuck, ain't I a kissing machine these days?"

"What?"

She looks up. "What? Nothing. It was, nothing really."

He is about to ask again but then he feels that mouth, _Skye's mouth fuck fuck fuck_ , on his again. This time his own is slightly open and Skye's tongue ( _fuck fuck. fuck?_ ) slips past his lips and his teeth. _No no no no no or maybe yes_. What were even the reasons for the _no_ , he can't even remember; he gets the _maybe_ and he definitely gets the _yes_. Her mouth is hot and she tastes of vodka and sweat. She moves her tongue against his and he shifts in his seat, suddenly a little too uncomfortable inside his suit. His hand moves to touch the small of her back but he thinks better of it just as it was about to make contact.

When she pulls away she keeps her hands on his shirt, fingers twisted above his chest. She looks like she has even less idea of what just happened than him.

"You just did it again," he points out. It just seems the polite thing to do? Coulson is too stunned to feel anything other than curiosity right now.

"I am aware of that, sir."

"And after your _profuse_ apologies." The word profuse tastes strange in his mouth. Is that the right way to pronounce it? He narrows his eyes to concentrate.

"Oh god I'm horrible, I'm a horrible person. You don't do that. You're Coulson. You're A.C. I shouldn't – what am I...? I'm a jerk."

"Skye, calm down." It feels good to pretend to be in control because hell if he actually feels any measure of control over the situation at all. If he can get her to calm the fuck down – and maybe get her to stop kissing him, somehow – everything will be just fine. As fine as anything can be tonight.

"I'm drunk," she declares, looking hopeful at the idea of finding an excuse. "It's a drunken thing. How do you call it?"

"A drunken kiss."

She frowns. "No, actually, it's not. It's nothing like that. The kiss wasn't the drunken stuff. It's the other stuff."

She throws her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his chest, startled herself to be hugging him but going through with it anyway.

Coulson freezes, this is the precise instant when he begins to sober up, but not enough, not nearly enough that he doesn't indulge on the pressure of her cheek through his shirt, her small hands clasped together closing the embrace. He runs a finger over her shoulderblade, feeling the edges through the white cotton of her t-shirt.

She lifts her head a bit, and draws a long breath below the knot of his tie.

"You smell so good. You always smell so good."

"I smell of scotch."

"Exactly. No! I meant – _underneath_."

She moves, closer, pressing her breasts against his side. _Fuck fuck fuck_.

He swears he needs to be either sober or much much drunker to deal with this. And he is just – this is all just so sad. He would never let himself think like this in the light of day, or without half a bottle of scotch and half a bottle of vodka in his system, he has pushed it all down so well (not well enough, apparently) that is almost a miracle he can formulate it, even drunkenly, with some approximation of honesty. He hasn't been lying to himself as well as he thought.

Oh god he is so angry at everything, so hurt right now, and so horny, and Skye is just so – so Skye. Which means this is probably a bad idea, letting her lean on his shoulder.

She suddenly lets go, slips her arms under his but away from him. She sits up with a start, looking straight ahead.

"Oh, no, no, no." Like she just realized something.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," she says, looking so unbearably and incomprehensibly sad.

"Why are you apologizing so much?"

"Because I didn't want to do this when you are drunk."

"You are drunk... _er_."

She takes a long, dramatic breath. As if this is so tiresome to explain and why wouldn't he just magically understand it.

"Yeah but like, I'm in my head. Right? I know what I know, and I know how I... but you? No way, never. You are so so so... You know? I never have any idea. So if you were sober at least I'd know for sure, for better or worse."

"Know what?"

"You _know_."

"I don't know."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, you do."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He is definitely not a patient drunk. You can add that to the list.

"You don't?" He says nothing. Her face twists with some kind of new realization. "Oh shit. I think I might have made a big mess out of things. I think I might have broken everything, please please please don't–"

Coulson watches her body shake a bit. He doesn't have anything anymore, he has absolutely nothing. It's all gone and shattered and why is Skye then so whole so in front of him.

He has to fix this. He has to make sure tomorrow will come and things won't be irreparable between them.

"It's okay, Skye," he tells her softly. "There's nothing broken. You haven't done anything wrong. It's just a bit of drunken kissing. Given the circumstances, it's only logical. It's _less than nothing_."

"Less than nothing?"

He tries to make his speech coherent enough but it comes out all jumbled and breathless. "Yes, yes, you don't have to worry. Tomorrow I'm not going to... look, we'll just forget it. That's how this kind of thing goes. It's not a big deal, we don't even have to mention it again. We don't even have to _think_ about it."

Skye looks appalled. She lets out a struggling noise, somewhere between a hiccup and a sob.

"Please please sir don't let this be the only conversation we have about this," she says, all in one breath.

"No?"

"No. I want to re–re–re _visit_? this conversation when we are less drunk and less wow, SHIELD was HYDRA, and less what the hell is going on with Ward and less did May really do that to you. I mean, it's just too much right now."

"You want to re – you want to talk about this again? Why?"

"Ugh, I hate you so much sometimes. Well, I don't really. It's the scotch talking, sure, but also for the smartest man I know you are also the stupidest man I know. It's a skill."

"That's not nice. I'm your superior."

"Not anymore. No SHIELD. No rules. Hey! I just realized: _No rules_. You know what that means?"

"What does it mean?"

Suddenly he is very interested in knowing what it means, what does she think it means, suddenly it's very pressing that he knows.

"It means that I can..." she makes a pained face. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

She does.

 

 

+

 

 

He is running his hand along the length of her spine while she doubles over the toilet, vomiting.

It's enough to sober anyone up. It's enough for the both of them.

They're on the floor of his private bathroom, it's bigger and more comfortable. It also gave him the chance to change his shirt. He moves his hand from her back to her hair, gently threading it with his fingers.

"You don't have to – oh god, you don't have to do that."

"It's okay."

It's actually soothing for him, running his fingers through her hair, a couple of damp locks stuck to her forehead. He does it until he can do it distractedly, a sort of white noise, and his mind is blank but for the pleasant feeling of her hair slipping across the palm of his hand, and the heat from the skin on her nape.

"Shouldn't mix," she mutters. "Should have known better."

Coulson feels guilty about that. He pushed the scotch towards her in the first place, just because misery loves company in a way and in a way he couldn't think of any version of _company_ that fits better than Skye these days. That's not a revelation or it shouldn't be but give him some leeway, he's still drunk enough that this kind of thing hits him like a truck – for one the alcohol was there in the first place to help him _dull_ his scattered emotions, not to sharpen the inconvenient ones.

After a while it looks like she's finished.

She still can't get up but he brings her some water. She spits into the bowl and looks up at him, appalled at herself.

"Great. You must be thinking how super sexy I look right now."

The worst part of it is – he is kind of thinking that. Or perhaps not exactly sexy, but real and desiring and desired. And there's the fact that he's never done this before: not with lovers, not with friends, not with fellow agents who turned out to work for a fascist organization. This is a gesture completely untouched by all that. This is something nobody else get to rewrite.

He leans over and places one simple kiss on her neck or right where her neck meets her shoulder.

"It's not always going to be _too much_ ," he tells, some sort of promise he knows he shouldn't be making right now. He sounds like he is sure of it and for a tiny blinding moment he is sure of it, he sees a day when bullet holes and the weight of betrayal won't threaten to overwhelm this moment between them. He sees a day for the right reasons, a day without this fear. He's sober now, and sober means careful. Sober also means no excuses in his mind.

He strokes the back of her neck with strong fingers, squeezing tightly but tenderly.

This doesn't have to do with betrayal or feeling broken. Which of course makes it all much worse. This has nothing to do with anything except him and Skye.

She looks up and looks him in the eye, very serious, very concentrated.

"I want you to know that the only reason why I am not kissing you again right now is that I think it would be too gross for you," she tells him, every word enunciated with painful importance.

"Noted."

Why doesn't she look as terrified as he feels?

He helps her to her bunk (after he had a little crisis where he actually considered offering his bed instead). Her room is in disarray but the bed looks clean. She lies over the covers and Coulson hands her one of the spare SHIELD-branded blankets, the cheap ones they don't use except now they do because there's nothing else.

"Oh, this is going to hurt tomorrow," she says, on her side, closing her eyes against the bedclothes.

"You think you'll need..."

"No, I'm done throwing up for the rest of my life. Yuck."

"I've left you a bottle of water here."

"Are you okay?" she asks him, looking up from her pillow. And it's strange, he thinks, he should be the one asking that. Then again he's always had empirical evidence that Skye is a lot smarter than him.

He nods, and moves back to leave her room.

She grabs his hand to stop him, fingers closed around the index and middle fingers.

"Hey. _Thanks_."

 

 

+

 

 

She is tidying up her room.

"Did you get all the broken glass out?"

"Probably not. Tomorrow I'll wake up with cuts all over me," she says, not grimly, but falling flat. She rubs her temple. "And why are you shouting at me."

"That bad?"

"I'm never drinking again," she says. _That bad?_ he wonders, a bit disappointed. Skye narrows her eyes and chuckles. "Okay, I said the same after my twentieth birthday so I know how this goes."

" _Twentieth_."

She smirks. "I'm sorry to burst your bubble, boss, but no, I did not wait until I was legal to drink alcohol. Please don't call the cops."

And he thought he was doing well with his hangover but he must be getting old because it hurts to smile.

He wonders just how much she remembers from last night. He hopes not too much but even that is either a half-assed hope or a blatant lie.

Now that the room is clean at least Skye starts reorganizing all her things around the bed. It appears that she has fished her Hula girl from inside her trash can and somehow has glued the two halves together – the effect is not perfect, you can still see the thing is broken, but it will do. Coulson feels achingly comforted by this, her refusal to give the figurine up. This is Skye, too, and you wouldn't know it if you missed the first movement of the piece.

"So what's up?" she asks, almost like everything is normal on all fronts. 

(he really wonders how much she remembers from last night, and this time, rather selfishly, he aims for _everything_ )

"There are still some repairs underway. We won't probably have wheels up until the afternoon."

"Okay."

He wonders if she is thinking about the Ward-shaped hole in their plans. He has no idea how they are going to find him if he doesn't want to be found.

"I wanted to apologize for last night," he says to her, eventually, fidgeting with his tie a bit. He's still reeling from the amount of alcohol in his system, everything a bit too sharp and out of reach.

She stops what she is doing, gazes at him with curiosity. It's a good thing she can meet his eyes, he thinks, it's a good thing, a good sign.

" _You_ wanted to apologize?"

"The thing is, Skye... last night you didn't see me at my best."

"Well, I wasn't such a shining example of humanity," she argues. "You saw me throw up all over your bathroom. And _on you_. So I think I should be the one worried about losing all your respect."

"Then don't worry."

She sits on her bed and crosses her legs. She doesn't talk again immediately, she gives herself a moment to look at Coulson, like she was seizing him up.

"But I think it was a good thing," she tells him.

"How is that?"

"Not that I threw up on you, that was bad." She pauses: "We saw each other at something less than our best. _So what?_ We saw each other. And we're okay. Hey, I'm not saying I enjoyed seeing you take it so hard on the chin but... I'm just glad you could talk to someone about it."

She doesn't mention that someone was her (or that it could only be her, at least right now) and Coulson thinks that makes her point more valid. She wasn't forcing herself into the picture, because the only thing she genuinely wanted was for him to be alright. He wonders exactly how she manages to do _that_ , if it's a trick. He knows she can be just as petty and selfish as anyone else, so it must mean something.

"And I remember what we said last night," Skye adds, something darting in her eyes, bold and shy at the same time.

He lets out a small, tired sigh.

"We said many things, Skye, not all of them are worth remembering."

"This one is," she tells him. Concentrated and serious and looking at him in the eye. "It's not always going to be _too much_. And I was thinking maybe we should hold each other to that."

He shift his weight from one feet to the other. He goes back to wishing she didn't remember anything of last night.

"Last night I was angry and desperate and I took it on you. I shouldn't have let things progress so far."

She leans back. "If that's what you really think, then that's fine I guess."

"And if it isn't?" Coulson asks, the words out of his mouth before he can stop himself. And he's a man who's always excelled at stopping himself.

"Look, we have work to do," she says, leaning forward again, closing some space between them, not just a metaphor. "We'll get back that hard drive. And we'll get Ward back. We'll find out what's been going on. So until then no more drinking and no more of the other stuff, I get it, I get why it has to be this way. But afterwards, I don't know, someday, I think I'd like you to sit down with me and listen, because there are some things I might want to tell you."

He nods on instinct, has absolutely no idea when he made this decision to crack this door open but he made it. _He_ made it. That is some sort of consolation on its own. No, actually, it's more than that, it's an improvement.

There's a pause between them and Skye is smiling at him in a comfortable way. He'd say she looks a bit too smug for a person who spent half of last night bent over a toilet bowl and puking herself to sleep.

"By the way... Where does that come from?" he asks, pointing at the figurine by her window.

Skye takes it in her hands, careful but enthusiastic. "My Hula girl?"

"Yes. I've always wondered."

"I didn't steal it, in case that's what you were thinking. It's a great story, though" she says, brightly. "If you have the time."

He does.


End file.
